No matter what the technology, we have to tweak it to fit our particular course or teaching context.

One of the frustrations with technology is that it rarely does exactly what we would like it to do.

A friend recently texted me. She had been tasked by her employer to find an app that would take care of a certain organizational problem they were having. Whenever she investigated a particular app, something about the tool prevented it from being selected. As she put it, “I’m starting to get annoyed at all the little factors I have to take into consideration that make it seem almost impossible to get this done in a way I’m even halfway happy with.”

We’ve all experienced the frustration of googling different apps and software, only to find the information isn’t all that helpful: too general, more about providing an overview and not answering a specific question about how the app would perform a particular function. My friend needed something tailored to her needs, but she wasn’t finding it. That’s no one’s fault; the sites she consulted had probably been created with different users and different contexts in mind.

She started realizing was that she wasn’t going to find the perfect solution that she had imagined for herself. She also didn’t have time to go to coding camp to learn how create her perfect app, so she knew that she would probably have to suggest a compromise solution that would only partially meet her employer’s needs.

My friend’s situation isn’t a bad metaphor for what we do when we design courses. We start out by thinking about context in teaching and course design, which means we’re basically taking into consideration all of those little factors that frame the course we’re putting together. Those little factors can become obstacles if we can’t find solutions that address them.

I think for a lot of instructors, relying on technology to teach in the time of COVID can leave them feeling like my friend. They have an idea of how they’d like to approach some aspect of their course, but are then stymied when the technology doesn’t cooperate. Or perhaps they do find a tool that lets them proceed as envisioned, but its learning curve is steeper than the Mont du Chat climb in the Tour de France.

This frustration becomes especially apparent when the technology at hand - say the learning management system - doesn’t let instructors teach the way they would in a classroom. But expecting that it will work as we’ve imagined it should is part of the problem. It’s in situations like these that we have to think a little more like the 1980s television character MacGyver.

MacGyver would always find himself in a tough spot, usually a locked room with no means of escape. He was doomed, as was his companion, usually a woman with very large hair. Yet he always found a way out using everyday things: a broom, some duct tape, common cleaning products, a light bulb, and his trusty Swiss army knife. His escapes usually involved massive explosions.

We would do well to approach teaching during COVID in a similar manner. The technology we have might not do everything we want it to do. But with some ingenuity we can MacGyver the space and tools we have into something that better meets our needs. Technology can be frustrating, but sometimes we can bend it just enough to our will to save the day.

For Fall Term 2020 this blog will be exploring issues informing education during a pandemic. It is appearing as part of a graduate seminar on online teaching and learning. You can read more about the seminar or see the other posts.

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